Cosí Sandwich Bar (Midtown East)

These fast food joints are all over the city and seem to be spreading like the plague. What amounts to an upscale Subway, Cosí puts a fancy accent mark over their ‘i’ and immediately transforms from a sub shop to a “sandwich bar.” We hate to quibble over semantics, but shouldn’t a bar have a bunch of beers on tap, idiots puffing on cigarette after cigarette, and some male bartender ignoring your pleas for a Harp because he’s busy flirting with the fourteen year-old with the strappy-top? In any case, like Subway before them, the only thing that makes Cosí’s sandwiches unique (and edible) is the bread on which they are served. Admittedly, the stuff is good. It’s this flat crunchy stuff that’s coated with oil, cooked right in front of you in these brick ovens, then sprinkled with just the right amount of salt. Of course without the bread you’d need to taste the low grade chicken (and various other luncheon type meats) that they sparingly provide (You’re probably safer going for the chunks of tandoori, buffalo and pesto chicken.) They have a bunch of gourmet things to choose from, like portabello mushrooms, grilled onions, and smoked salmon, but everything you add increases the price. That’s where we come to the problem. Eight bucks for a sandwich with 3 oz. of meat on it makes us feel a little ripped-off. Then you look behind you at the 50 people in line behind you and realize why these things are popping up quicker than Roman Polanski at a high school cheerleader try-out. [MF]